What/Why clustering:
1) For three minutes, everyone writes down, on two different stickies/pieces of paper, What a project/direction/idea they think the group should work on
, and Why it's important to them personally
.
2) Going around a circle, everyone shares one idea at a time.
3) For five minutes, everyone writes down some more ideas.
4) Going around a circle, everyone shares all the ideas.
5) Similar Why
s are clustered together and labeled/grouped.
The group now has a general sense of what kind of ideas/importance they have.
More often than not, in the 5+ times I've used this method, this has been incredibly helpful for gathering a group together towards a shared ideal. It feels very playful to shared 'what' ideas, but very focusing/collectivizing to synchronize on 'why' ideas.